Why Weekes was traded: Questionable knee injury and an incredible tale of robbery led to goaltender's exit from Canucks

It was not the news Canucks coach Marc Crawford wanted to hear. Team trainer Mike Burnstein had just handed him the results of x-rays done on the right knee of goaltender Kevin Weekes. The rookie netminder had pulled himself out of a game against the Phoenix Coyotes five days earlier when he felt a ”twinge” in the knee as he moved to make a save.

Garth Snow, the team’s designated No. 1 goalie, was already out with a broken finger. And with Weekes sidelined, the Canucks were in troublein the net. As an emergency measure, the team signed journeyman backstop Corey Schwab to fill in until either Weekes or Snow returned.

The play in which Weekes was hurt looked remarkably harmless on video replay. He was simply moving from one side of his crease to the other. Upon examination, there were no exterior signs of damage to the knee. No swelling. And the young goalie could walk easily enough. So why, then, didn’t Weekes just suck it up and play with a little pain, some around the team wondered.

That’s what hockey players did.

Certainly, his coach’s patience was wearing thin. The team had gotten off to a great start. Weekes had been playing well. And Marc Crawford, brought to Vancouver at great expense to turn this team around, didn’t want to see a terrific beginning jeopardized because his goalie refusedto play with a little discomfort.

But Weekes insisted there was something wrong with his knee. And that he knew his body better than anyone else. When he felt 100 per cent, he’d play again.

Not until then.

On the morning of Nov. 3, not long after the Canucks had finished practising at Burnaby 8-Rinks, Burnstein showed Crawford the results of the MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) done on Weekes’ injured knee. The sophisticated x-ray technique showed no damage at all.

The results confirmed all of Crawford’s suspicions.

The coach and his goalie found themselves in a players’ lounge off the team’s 8-Rinks dressing room. Soon Crawford was giving it to Weekes in a profanity-laced tirade that questioned the player’s character and commitment to his teammates. Soon, every player on the team could hear the one-sided battle.

It was gruesome.

”You’ll do what I tell you to do,” Crawford screamed.

”From now on, you don’t think,” the coached yelled.

Weekes was stunned. He didn’t know what to say except to reiterate that he knew his body better than anyone and he wasn’t near 100 per cent.

Eventually, the tirade concluded. Weekes wandered off into a nearby trainers’ room where some of his teammates were being treated. A few minutes later, Crawford entered the room.

”Come on, Kevin, Round II,” said the coach.

And Weekes was summoned back into the players’ lounge for another tongue-lashing by the coach.

Weekes’ teammates weren’t sure what to make of the scene. Each one was just glad it wasn’t him.

Kevin Weekes joined the Canucks in a 1999 trade for Pavel Bure.Gerry Kahrmann /
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When the Canucks announced on Dec. 19 they had completed a trade for Islanders goalie Felix Potvin, few expected Kevin Weekes to be part of the package. After all, Weekes was a key figure in the Pavel Bure trade. He was dubbed the team’s ”goalie of the future” by management. While his technique needed refinement, few doubted he would one day develop into a fine NHL goaltender.

So why, then, did the Canucks give up on him?

First, management didn’t believe that either Garth Snow or Kevin Weekes were the kind of goaltender that could make the Canucks playoff contenders. Meantime, it was no secret Crawford, in particular, believed Potvin was capable of recapturing the form that at one time made him one of the elite goalies in the NHL.

If there was going to be a trade to bring Potvin to Vancouver, then one of the existing goalies had to go the other way. While Snow was the obvious choice, because of his age and salary, management also knew he was incredibly popular in the dressing room.

Which was not something that could be said of Weekes.

Even before the blow-up over his knee injury, Canucks brass had questions about Weekes’ commitment. It started back at training camp, when the goalie showed up in surprisingly poor condition.

While on the surface Weekes cut an impressive figure, a washboard stomach and well-developed pecs, underneath things weren’t quite as rosy. Fitness testing showed Weekes was the second-worse conditioned athlete at camp. Only defenceman Doug Bodger had results that wereworse.

Given the importance of this season, and the doubts that hung over Weekes’ head entering it (he had yet to win an NHL game) many wereappalled that he would show up to camp in the condition he did.

That was soon forgotten, however, when Weekes played well in goal to start the season. When Snow was lost to injury, even more pressure was heaped on Weekes’ young shoulders and at first he responded well.

Then the knee injury came along.

According to sources, both the coaching staff and management lost confidence in Weekes when he refused to play with a sore knee – especially given the MRI results.

However, the last straw likely occurred on Dec. 2, a night the Canucks were playing the Edmonton Oilers at home.

Weekes was supposed to be on the bench as a backup, still not 100 per cent, according to him, but willing to play if the starter got hurt. But as game time approached Kevin Weekes was nowhere to be found.

About five minutes before his team was to head out on the ice for the pre-game skate, Weekes finally showed up. And with the most incredible tale.

According to sources, Weekes told the coaching staff and team security he’d been robbed. His story went like this.

On his way to the game, he’d gone into a dry cleaner in downtown Vancouver to pick up some items he’d dropped off earlier. When he walked out of the shop, he was approached by a man.

”Are you Kevin Weekes?” the man allegedly asked.

”Yes.”

”Follow me,” he said.

Kevin Weekes’ Canucks career lasted less than a year.Gerry Kahrmann /
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At this point, Weekes told coaches and team security, the robber hopped in his car and started driving.

Weekes hopped in his and followed the guy across the Granville Street Bridge to an alley somewhere in the Granville Island area.

The guy asked for any money Weekes was carrying and the player handed over several hundred dollars in bills. There was no gun involved.

And that, said Kevin Weekes, was why he was late.

Most found the tale too bizarre to believe. Why would he get in his car and follow a criminal?

Why wouldn’t he drive to the police station?

Why wouldn’t he get on his cell phone to police?

There also seemed to be discrepancies in his story. At one point he said he was approached by the man leaving his apartment. Then it was when he was leaving the dry cleaners. He couldn’t describe the robber.

Then Weekes insisted the police not investigate.

Most around the team felt Weekes was late because he had simply slept through his alarm. But instead of admitting it, he concocted this grandiose story about a robbery.

Sources indicate GM Brian Burke went ”ballistic” when the story was conveyed to him. Marc Crawford was also not amused.

To them, it again spoke to a lack of character. They were concerned how this latest episode would be regarded by Weekes’ teammates. Would they lose all faith in him? Would they play hard in front of him?

For their part, the players regarded the robbery story mostly with amusement.

”Did they catch the bad guy yet?” the players joked.

In truth, however, few really cared if Weekes did make the story up to save himself the embarrassment of admitting he’d slept through his alarm.

”As long as he stopped the puck,” said one player. ”That’s all we cared about.”

But it was too late. Less than three weeks later, Weekes was no longer a Canuck.

Weekes makes a save in March, 1999.Colin Price /
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Kevin Weekes is sitting in a Boston restaurant, his Islanders scheduled to play the Bruins in a few hours. He’s on his cell phone while he waits for his pre-game dinner to arrive.

Weekes says he’s still not sure how or why it all went so bad in Vancouver.

But he’s wise enough to know there were things that made management and the coaching staff sour on him. You might expect, given the way things turned out, he’d be a little bitter. And yet he’s not.

”I had a wonderful time in Vancouver,” Weekes says.

”I was treated well by coaches, the fans, and I want to thank all of them for the time I did have there.”

As for the incidents contained in this story, Weekes had an answer for all of them.

He said a groin injury he suffered in the summer prevented him from doing the regular running and bike work heading into camp.

That’s why he arrived in poor shape. Still, he said, he’d put his physical conditioning up against any goalie in the league.

As for the knee injury, Weekes said tests done by doctors in New York revealed two tears that weren’t discovered by medical staff in Vancouver. ”So that bears out what I said in Vancouver,” said Weekes.

He said he will have to get the knee ”scoped” at the end of the season or sooner. However, he continues to play on the island and, for the most part, play well.

There was also no reason for him not to want to play, he says, because he received bonuses for points accumulated while he was in goal.

As for the robbery, all Weekes would say is: ”Of course it happened … how many people do you know who would make up a story about being robbed?”

Weekes said if he was traded because management and coaches didn’t believe his story, ”that would be stupid.”

Despite his abrupt end here, Weekes refuses to allow any of it to colour his time as a Canuck.

”I’m not going to allow any of that to taint my over-all impression of my time there,” he said. ”That kind of stuff is beneath me.”

Brian Burke refused to comment on any of the information contained in this story.

”Our policy is not to comment on why we trade players,” Burke said. ”I said it before and I’ll say it again: I only wish Kevin Weekes well and all the success. I still think he’ll be a very good goalie.”

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Why Weekes was traded: Questionable knee injury and an incredible tale of robbery led to goaltender's exit from Canucks